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Vice president for sport Jordi Mestre and the director of professional sport Albert Soler gave a conference on Monday to explain the new structure for FC Barcelona’s sports ‘sections’. The big change is the instruction of a position to be known as the manager of each sport.

Joan Creus has been appointed this role for the basketball section, while David Barrufet does likewise for handball and Toni Miró for roller hockey, with the futsal manager as yet undecided. As Albert Soler explained “this person is the highest authority for their section. That sport will be run under their responsibility and competence, from the first team to the academy. And he will also be the visible face of that sport and the person who will explain the progress of the different projects”

Technical secretaries

Each manager will be assisted by a technical secretary, a dual role to be served by the head coaches of each team, namely Xavi Pascual, Marc Carmona and Ricard Muñoz in the cases of handball, futsal and roller hockey. Former first team captain Rodrigo de la Fuente will be the technical secretary for the basketball first team and Pere Capdevila will perform the same functions for the academy. The futsal youth system will be overseen by Txus Lahoz and Edu Castro will do likewise for the roller hockey academy – with the handball youth technical secretary yet to be named.

Promoting youth sport

“We believe we are the greatest multi-sports club in the world and to keep things that way we need to have a solid structure from the grass roots up” explained Albert Soler. “The idea is for as many members of the first team to have been produced at the club.”

Joan Creus added that “my role is to set objectives, and plan the first team’s philosophy. I’ll also be helping Rodrigo de la Fuente as technical secretary.” Former handball coach David Barrufet described “a sporting, coaching and educational project, whereby all the new players in the youth system will be working to reach the first team, while we shall always be working at the same time on fostering their education.” And Toni Miró concluded by saying that “the roller hockey section is working very well and there is a lot of pressure on us because we have won so much in the past. I want to help make sure that as many players as possible are products of our own youth system.”